


Silent Nico Nico Night

by AlexIsOkay



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: Christmas, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 16:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16957269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexIsOkay/pseuds/AlexIsOkay
Summary: Maki always hates her family's annual Christmas parties. Upon discovering this, Nico conspires to break her free.





	Silent Nico Nico Night

Maki always hated her family’s Christmas party. She absolutely despised it. The holidays were usually already a stressful time of year, and it was only made worse by having every distant relative and member of her extended family and every coworker her parents had ever known crammed into their house while she was expected to dress up nicely and socialize with them. She’d hated it ever since she was a little girl, and that hatred hadn’t gone away with age. She wished she could just hide in her room for the rest of the evening and not have to deal with anyone else, but unfortunately she knew she wouldn’t be so lucky.

The one saving grace was that, this year, she had been allowed to invite her friends. The other members of µ's were all gathered around her living room, each of them dressed in the same sorts of fancy party dresses Maki herself was wearing, though it had been a while since she had been able to go over and talk to them. Every time she tried to take two steps she was accosted by an aunt or an uncle or some doctor who worked with one of her parents and told Maki how much she’d grown since the last time they’d seen each other, even though she could swear they had never met before. For someone who generally preferred to keep to herself and be left alone most of the time, it was a waking nightmare. Finally, though, after spending a solid half hour trying to cross over a distance of about twenty feet, Maki managed to break through the crowd and reach the area against the wall where her friends had gathered.

“Maki-chan!” Honoka said, as she watched Maki come towards her. “You made it!”

“Don’t shout my name so loud,” Maki replied, glancing back over her shoulder at the rest of the party. “You’ll draw even more attention to me.”

“Trying to be sneaky, are we?” Nozomi hummed, arm linked with Eli as she spoke. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your hair really makes you stand out from the crowd.”

“Ugh. Don’t remind me.” Maki knew Nozomi was right, though; even if she did try to blend in and go unnoticed, it would be hard for her to actually pull that off. She just had to wait for the party to be over. Only another hour or two… Hopefully.

“At least the food is good, right?” Rin asked. Hanayo nodded in fervent agreement, although her face was already busy being stuffed by a whole plate of Christmas cookies she had scooped up off one of the nearby tables.

“And maybe there will even still be some left by the time the party is over,” Umi added on, shooting a cautionary glare in the direction of the first years. Hanayo seemed entirely unfazed.

“I’d gladly skip out on dinner entirely if it meant being able to avoid all of this,” Maki said, vaguely gesturing to the rest of the party behind her. “Trust me, it’s not worth it.”

“At least it will be over soon, right?” Kotori suggested. She was smiling softly while she spoke, clearly trying to lift Maki’s spirits a little bit, but it didn’t seem to be having much of an effect. Maki just looked exhausted, shoulders slumped forward slightly as she let out a long sigh. And, just a moment later, she was being called to action once again.

“Maki!” her mother’s voice called out from a short distance away. “Come over here and say hello to your grandmother!”

“Pray for me,” Maki groaned, glancing around at the rest of µ's one more time before excusing herself from the group. The rest of the girls watched her disappear back into the crowd, all of them feeling some level of sympathy for her.

“She really seems like she’s hating this, doesn’t she?” Nico murmured, eyes still trailing Maki as she disappeared from view.

“I guess I can’t really blame her,” Eli replied. “I know there are certain members of my family I wouldn’t be thrilled to be around either.”

“I guess you’ll just have to spend Christmas with me, then,” Nozomi hummed, wrapping both her arms around Eli’s and leaning up against her girlfriend. Eli laughed softly, and rolled her eyes, but Nico’s attention still hadn’t shifted.

* * *

Another half hour of forced socialization later, Maki had finally managed to disappear into the kitchen for a moment of peace. She wasn’t entirely alone, with the space occupied by the caterers her parents had hired to constantly replenish the food the guests were continuously going through, but at least caterers weren’t going to try to talk to her.

Once she was in the kitchen Maki walked over towards the sink, resting her hands on the edge of the counter and taking a minute to simply try to let go of the stress she was holding in. She shut her eyes and started going through some breathing exercise she knew- technically they were supposed to be for singing, but that could help with alleviating stress as well. They weren’t a miracle cure, but she wanted to believe they were taking at least a little bit of the weight off her shoulders, and were helping to prepare her to go back and face the rest of the party in another minute or two. Or five. Or ten. Or however long it took someone to realize she was hiding out in here.

As Maki worked through her exercises and tried to imagine the stress disappearing from her body, she found herself interrupted by a strange noise. It sounded like tapping, coming from directly in front of her. And, as Maki opened her eyes and looked through the window over the sink, she was able to find the source: Nico was standing outside, rapping her finger against the glass.

It was already dark outside, and if Nico had been much farther away she probably wouldn’t have been visible. She was bundled up in a coat and scarf, standing in the light dusting of snow that covered the path behind the Nishikino home, looking even shorter than usual thanks to the ground floor of the house still being raised up above the outdoors a little bit. The moment Maki saw Nico standing there confusion was visible on her face, and she would have asked Nico what the hell she was doing out there if that didn’t require shouting through the glass when she was trying to hide. Nico, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care much for Maki’s confusion. Instead she just started pointing sideways, down the hall towards a door that lead out into the backyard. Maki looked down towards the door, then back at Nico, then pointed in the same direction, as if she was uncertain about what Nico wanted from her. Upon seeing Maki’s hesitation Nico just pointed again, more forcefully this time, eyebrows creasing down into a look of frustration.

As Maki pulled her eyes away from the window and looked around at her surroundings, she realized that she was still alone in the kitchen, save for the caterers, and that there didn’t appear to be anyone else in the hallway either. She was still unsure of why, precisely, Nico was outside, or what the other girl wanted from her, but it at least seemed like she wasn’t going to get caught if she went out there. Still, Maki was just a little bit more quiet and a little bit more cautious than she would normally be as she started to creep down the hall, carefully making her way towards the door. Eventually she reached it, very slowly twisting the knob to open it up and step outside.

The first thing Maki noticed was the blast of cold air. It was, quite literally, freezing outside, and a sleeveless party dress wasn’t exactly made to protect her from weather like that. Despite the fact that she was already almost shivering, though, that cold also compelled Maki to step all the way outside and pull the door shut behind her, not wanting to leave it open and let the chill into the house. As she moved onto the step Maki saw Nico crunching through the snow towards her, holding a bundled up coat and scarf in her arms- a very familiar looking coat and scarf, for that matter.

“Here,” Nico said, holding the garments out with no further explanation. “Put these on.”

“Are those… Mine?” Maki asked. “How did you get those?”

“I swiped them from the coat closet, duh,” Nico replied.

“How did you even know they were mine? There must be a hundred different coats in there by now.”

“Uhhh, because I’ve seen you were them like a million times by now? Now hurry, put them on.”

“Are you going to explain what you’re doing out here?” Maki insisted. “Why are you running around behind my house when everyone else is inside?”

“Because I’m breaking you out of here, obviously,” Nico answered. “So put your coat on and let’s go. Before someone sees us.” When Maki heard that she looked back at Nico for a few seconds, slightly thrown off by how casually Nico had proposed this idea. After another moment or two, though, she let out a soft sigh, breaking eye contact with Nico and looking off to the side.

“Nico-chan,” she murmured. “I can’t just abandon the party. My parents will get angry with me if I do.”

“The party’s huge, they probably won’t even notice you’re gone,” Nico retorted. “And you’re  _ clearly  _ not having a good time in there. I’m giving you a chance to get away, so stop complaining and c’mon already.” Another second or two of hesitation followed that, before Maki slowly looked back towards Nico, and towards the coat and scarf that were still waiting for her.

“Where are you even taking me?” she asked.

“That’s a surprise,” Nico replied. “So if you wanna find out we’d better get going.” Maki still had reservations about up and abandoning the party, and the glances she kept giving back over her shoulder and inside the house were proof of that. But on the other hand, in front of her, Nico was still waiting for her, still clearly looking impatient, and in the end that seemed to win out. Maybe that just meant an irritated Nico was worse than any punishment her parents could hand down.

“Fine,” she said, reaching out to take the coat and the scarf. Despite the vaguely annoyed front she tried to put on as she pulled the coat over her arms and wrapped the scarf around her neck, she couldn’t deny that it actually felt incredibly nice to not be standing out in the cold with bare arms and nothing but a thin dress to protect her. Even with the coat her legs were still exposed, and the air was still frigid against her skin, but it was far better than nothing.

Once Maki had protected herself from the elements she looked back up at Nico, raising an eyebrow expectantly. “ _ Now _ will you say where we’re going?” she asked.

“I told you, that’s a surprise,” Nico replied, already turning and starting to walk back towards the edge of the house, in the direction that lead around towards the main road.

“Nico-chan!” Maki tried to protest. But, not wanting to be left standing there all on her own, she didn’t really have much of a choice but to comply.

Maki’s neighborhood was full of large houses, most of them with tall fences or brick walls surrounding the property. Some of them had Christmas decorations set up, though it was nothing too substantial; lights strung along a tree here, a plastic Santa there. Even Maki’s own parents, despite their commitment to throwing such an enormous party every year, never bothered much with decorating the outside of the house.

As Maki and Nico circled around the front of the Nishikino home and started to walk away Maki felt a certain nagging feeling looming up behind her, urging her to get further down the street as fast as she could for fear of being seen as she made her escape. She was walking with a hurried gait, so much so that she ended up overtaking Nico even though the other girl was supposed to be leading the way.

“Jeez, you’re eager all of a sudden,” Nico said. “A minute ago I couldn’t even get you out of your house and now you’re rushing past me?”

“I just don’t want to get caught,” Maki replied, before grabbing Nico’s hand and yanking her along. “So hurry up.”

“Alright, alright! Calm down! I’m coming!” Nico huffed. She tried to pull her arm away in protest, but Maki had her in a tight grip, and it was only once they had reached the end of the street that she finally came to a stop, deferring to Nico once again.

“Now, where are we going?” she asked, to which Nico responded with a point to the left.

“This way,” she said. “It’s close to here.”

“And I suppose you’re still not telling me what ‘it’ is?”

“You’re really not good with this whole ‘surprises’ thing, are you?” Maki scrunched up her face in displeasure at the jab, but said nothing else as Nico started to lead the way. She really didn’t have the faintest clue where they were going- Maki knew some of the area around her home, but most of the time if she was going anywhere it involved travelling further in towards the city. Nico, meanwhile, seemed to be leading her in the opposite direction, down streets Maki had never been down before in her life. They all quickly started to look the same as well, occupied by large houses lined up against each other, all sporting similar architecture and perfectly maintained entryways. It all started to feel so similar that Maki wouldn’t have been surprised to discover they were going around in circles, that Nico was just being Nico and playing some sort of prank on her. But, as they approached the end of yet another street, Nico abruptly stopped dead in her tracks.

“This should do it,” she declared. “Close your eyes.”

“Close… What?” Maki replied.

“Close your eyes! I don’t want the surprise to get ruined.” Maki was still skeptical, but she had come this far, so why the hell not go a little further?

“Fine,” she said, shutting her eyes and waiting for Nico’s next instruction. “Happy?”

“Yeah. Now c’mon.” And then, suddenly, Maki felt Nico grabbing her hand, and she felt herself being pulled forward.

“H-Hey, hold on a second!” Maki blurted out, stumbling blindly forward in the direction Nico was pulling her. “You’re expecting me to walk like this?”

“Relax!” she heard Nico reply. “I won’t let you trip or crash into anything.” Maki wanted to believe that, but she honestly wasn’t sure if she could.

“It’d better not be too much farther from here,” she protested.

“It’s not. Just trust me.” As Maki let herself get dragged along, feet haphazardly skittering back and forth across a slippery sidewalk, Maki had to wonder why she had let herself get dragged into a situation like this. If she had known  _ this  _ was Nico’s plan for her she might have been less willing to come along. And yet… It was still probably better than being at the party.

“Alright,” Nico eventually said, and Maki could feel the third year coming to a stop in front of her. Maki halted as well, waiting for official permission before doing anything else. “Open your eyes,” Nico said. And Maki did. And suddenly, she was breathless.

The sight in front of her was positively gorgeous. They were standing at the end of a street, much like the one Maki herself lived on, and much like the ones that made up so many of the areas around her house. Unlike the neighborhoods Maki was familiar with, though, the ones that looked so bleak and bland and underwhelming coming this time of year, every inch of this street was absolutely covered in lights.

Lights worked their way along the sides of the houses, lining windows and the areas where rooves met walls. Lights snaked their way through the fences that separated the houses from the roads. Lights twisted through the trees and bushes that stood in front of some of the homes. Some lights even stretched overhead, from one side of the street to the other, making arches and tunnels as the road continued out in front of her. Some of them were illuminated constantly, while others flickered in and out, twinkling like stars or blinking on and off in time to each other. Some of them followed simple lines along the top of a fence or the edge of a house, while others were twisted into patterns, creating glowing spirals or luminous depictions of snowflakes and trees. The glow was warm and radiant, making Maki momentarily forget that it was the dead of winter. It was positively, indescribably beautiful.

At first Maki was just rooted there, frozen in place, stunned into silence by the sight. She stood there at the end of the street, hand still loosely gripping Nico’s as she took in the scenery with a stunned silence about her. The yellow glow of the lights reflected in her eyes, and it shone through the little clouds of fog that escaped Maki’s lips with each awestruck breath she took. Her family would put up a tree, or hang lights along the railings at home, but they had never done anything that even came close to this. Maki was transfixed, and she probably could have stood there staring for ages. It was only the sound of Nico’s voice that finally broke her from her trance.

“Pretty impressive, isn’t it?” she said. She was grinning triumphantly, and there was a prideful arrogance in her voice that, under normal circumstances, Maki probably would have found irritating. Right now, though, all she could bring herself to do was nod in agreement.

“It’s… It’s absolutely beautiful,” she agreed. “How did you even know about a place like this?”

“The families that live here go all out like this every year,” Nico answered. “I come here all the time. Usually it’s by myself, though, or with my siblings. But…” She trailed off for a moment there, fingers still delicately intertwined with Maki’s, seeming just a moment shy of letting go and breaking loose before she finished her sentence. “I guess I’m alright sharing it with you too.”

When she heard that Maki finally managed to pull her gaze away from the sight stretching out in front of her, looking over at Nico for the first time since she had opened her eyes. Nico was still staring up at the lights herself, but even though she said she’d seen this plenty of times before, Maki could still see some hint of that same awestruck amazement that she herself was feeling in that moment, written across Nico’s face, lingering behind her eyes. And it hit Maki, on some level, that Nico had decided to share this with her. To pull her away from the holiday party she hated so much, and to drag her out into the freezing cold, and to make her stumble through the streets completely blind, and to share this special, secret, hidden little thing with her. And that inspired Maki to do something impulsive.

She didn’t really think it through as she pulled at Nico’s hand, firmly tugging the other girl towards her. She didn’t stop to wonder what she was doing as she saw Nico looking up at her with a startled expression. She didn’t ask herself what had prompted this as she looped her free arm around Nico’s waist, pulling her closer still. Maki didn’t let herself think about anything at all. She just leaned down, and kissed Nico under the Christmas lights.

Nico’s lips were cold, but Maki supposed her own probably weren’t any better. She heard a startled noise come from Nico as they met, but Nico wasn’t pulling away, and she supposed that was probably a good sign. They didn’t stay together like that for very long- probably not even a full second, though Maki wasn’t really sure. Soon enough she was breaking away again, and she was looking down at Nico, and she could tell from the fog rising up between them that they were both breathing a little bit faster now. Nico’s face was red, and Maki assumed it wasn’t just from the cold, but if the heat she could feel on her own cheeks was any indication she would guess she probably looked the same way right now. For a few seconds the two of them just stared at each other, both looking more surprised than anything, and then Nico turned away, pulling her scarf up over her blushing face. Their fingers were still intertwined, and suddenly Maki found herself laughing softly. She didn’t know what part of this was funny to her, but she was smiling, and laughing, turning away as well to look out at the Christmas lights alongside Nico, hand in hand.

“Give me a little bit of warning next time you’re gonna do that,” Maki heard Nico’s muffled voice say from behind her scarf, and her smile stretched wider.

“Alright,” she agreed, a little bit of laughter still left in her voice. “I will.” Her hand squeezed Nico’s more tightly now, and she felt Nico squeezing back. The winter air was still cold around her, still nipping at her underdressed legs and exposed face, but suddenly it didn’t feel so bad anymore. “Merry Christmas, Nico-chan” Maki said.

“Yeah,” Nico replied. “Merry Christmas.”


End file.
